"It's better for our politics, Your Majesty," Verdant said. "It is simply a better process. There's justification for it now. It's a very Stormfront thing to do, to declare that land for ourselves. Especially with the location, we would be annexing some land from the Yarmdon. A thing that the populace will appreciate. A bloodless takeover of the Pendragon lands in the process would not be something that they would frown as heavily at."
Oliver was almost beginning to regret saying it. For him, it had been a light idea, a childish sort of suggestion. The sort of thing that Beam might have thought fondly to himself as he raced through the trees of the mountains, without seeing a single person. He might have fancied that he ruled them. Now, however, when he said such things, they carried weight. Now when he fancied that he ruled something, terrifyingly, the ball started to role, and his advisors saw to it that he soon would.
